To Write or Die
I have trouble writing. I find it hard to separate the drafting and editing process. I've struggled with it enough, and read enough advice to know this. So now I will be trying out Write or Die. For the moment, I just want to get into the habit of writing. Writing anything at all at the moment would be good.
My aim for tonight: To write 1000 words in an hour. To music found based on Fall Out Boy - Tiffany Blews. About things that have been frustrating me lately. Because there are lots of these things.
35 minutes later I made it to my word count!
Lots of things have been frustrating me lately. Particularly Eileen at work. She is ridiculously, stubbornly, anti-vaccine. A girl died last week an hour after having the cervical cancer vaccine. Everybody medically-connected, who I heard interviewed, said straight away that they strongly doubted the vaccine was responsible for her death. An inquest was held and found that the girl had a large malignant tumour in her chest. This tumour could have killed her at any time. This was mentioned several times. But the girl (and I feel awful for not being able to remember her name right now - Natalie Morton) happened to die/get taken ill an hour after she had the jab. And is referred to everywhere (including above) as the cervical vaccine death girl (or words to that affect).
This has just given Eileen a starting point for how vaccines are evil. Because the MMR jab gives you autism. And it's awful that you aren't allowed to have the vaccines separately (for your children) even though they're your children.
First of all - the MMR vaccine almost certainly does not cause autism. 1 study, which has been criticised heavily, (I don't know how to reword this to be less negative) said there was a link. Numerous studies since then have shown there isn't a link. The most recent one I heard about (links to a BBC and Guardian article about it) was a study into autism rates discovered that the rate in children is very similar to the rate in adults. The introduction of MMR hasn't increased the number of people who have autism. Saying "When I was young there weren't as many autistic people around. Nowadays every school has loads of autistic students so it shows there is more autism about" ignores the fact that autism is better understood and recognised nowadays.
I think (but will probably go research) that the MMR is more effective or safer than having separate measles, mumps and rubella jabs. To be honest, I'm taking it on trust that there is a good reason for giving people the triple vaccine other than cost.
Edit: I found a whole section on the NHS website about MMR here. It discuss the "links" between MMR and autism here and makes the point which I'd forgotten to: Autism is a developmental disorder which affects the way people interact (or don't) socially. The symptoms of autism become noticeable when the child doesn't develop the expected social skills, when they're toddlers. This is the same time the MMR jab is given, so is why there may be anecdotal evidence of MMR causing autism. The timings happen to coincide but this doesn't mean one causes the other.
Also, the amount of bloody controversy this vaccine has caused makes me so angry. It vaccinates against HPV (the human papillomavirus) which is a cause of cervical cancer. The vaccine is most efficient if given either before the girl enters puberty or they become sexually active. I can't remember off the top of my head which one it is - but I know there is a very good reason the vaccine is being given to 12/13 year old girls and it is too do with effectiveness.
Edit: In fact I'm informed by the NHS website here that 99% of all cervical cancers are caused by HPV and "The HPV vaccine protects against the two strains of HPV (16 and 18) that cause cervical cancer in over 70% of women"
So the vaccine will prevent over 70% cases of cervical cancer.
On second thoughts, I'm pretty sure it's too do be with being sexually active. Because the first big controversy was that having this injection was going to make girls more likely to go out and have sex. Clearly, having a vaccine against one, rarely mentioned, sexually transmitted disease is going to make you jump into bed with the first boy you come across. The main STIs which were covered when I was a teenager (or pre-teen. I think I was about 11 when we were taught about HIV. And that was 14 years ago) were HIV, Chlamydia, gonorrhoea and herpes. I don't recall HPV being mentioned at all. But the ones I was told about and (rightly) scared off unprotected sex with are deadly, symptomless and gross (respectively). I imagine that most teenagers would feel the same and being told, well there's one less to worry about, isn't actually going to make much difference.
Vaccines save lives. This vaccine will protect against cancer. At the moment, cancer treatments are almost as life changing/breaking as the disease. As far as I know. I've been lucky that none of my immediate circle of family and friends have had the disease, but I know others who have had it and heard tales of how draining the treatments are. Also film and tv tell me this so it must be true (Important: this is not enough to make something true). If we have any protection against cancer, why the hesitation against using it? Is it because it's a female disease? Is it because people like to make a fuss over anything?
There was more that I meant to moan/bitch about but I can't remember right this second. This issue has got me very annoyed and frustrated. Partly because I don't have all the facts. I'm not a doctor, or whatever you'd need to be to understand vaccines and how they work. Also I can't stop and look these things up because I am writing or die-ing.... But now I have plenty or beginning thoughts to go and look into when I finish.
Derren Brown hacked me off the other week on his "how to predict the lottery numbers" show. Partly because the show was advertised and presented as a reveal the trick show. A lot of his previous shows have been a show and tell - show and trick then explain the basics of how it works. True, sometimes a lot of rubbish was thrown in too. Tales of old magicians doing this and that. Some bells and whistles. But there was always some explanations too.
The lottery show was all bluster. The bit that I would have found most interesting (how to win at a coin tossing game, most probably using game theory) was glossed over with "This uses deep maths. I could spend a whole hour explaining how this works to you".
"Deep maths" is so clearly magician speak for "I don't want to tell you so I am going to scare you off by telling you it's a subject you hate and that it's a complicated version of that subject" It really annoyed me because I am a mathematician at heart and I hate that people just dismiss the subject. Tell anyone you studied maths at university and you'll probably get a response along the lines of "you must have been really clever/I hated maths at school/I could never understand maths." I hate that it is socially acceptable to be bad at maths.
The fanfare came then so I stopped. I guess I could have carried on writing, but I would have been here all night once I'd started on Maths and why it is great.
Some statistics to finish with:
Drafting time: 35 minutes
Editing time: 1 hour 10 minutes (Including finding links and reading the article to make sure there were relevant)
Draft length: 1005 words
Edited length: 1176 words
My aim for tonight: To write 1000 words in an hour. To music found based on Fall Out Boy - Tiffany Blews. About things that have been frustrating me lately. Because there are lots of these things.
35 minutes later I made it to my word count!
Lots of things have been frustrating me lately. Particularly Eileen at work. She is ridiculously, stubbornly, anti-vaccine. A girl died last week an hour after having the cervical cancer vaccine. Everybody medically-connected, who I heard interviewed, said straight away that they strongly doubted the vaccine was responsible for her death. An inquest was held and found that the girl had a large malignant tumour in her chest. This tumour could have killed her at any time. This was mentioned several times. But the girl (and I feel awful for not being able to remember her name right now - Natalie Morton) happened to die/get taken ill an hour after she had the jab. And is referred to everywhere (including above) as the cervical vaccine death girl (or words to that affect).
This has just given Eileen a starting point for how vaccines are evil. Because the MMR jab gives you autism. And it's awful that you aren't allowed to have the vaccines separately (for your children) even though they're your children.
First of all - the MMR vaccine almost certainly does not cause autism. 1 study, which has been criticised heavily, (I don't know how to reword this to be less negative) said there was a link. Numerous studies since then have shown there isn't a link. The most recent one I heard about (links to a BBC and Guardian article about it) was a study into autism rates discovered that the rate in children is very similar to the rate in adults. The introduction of MMR hasn't increased the number of people who have autism. Saying "When I was young there weren't as many autistic people around. Nowadays every school has loads of autistic students so it shows there is more autism about" ignores the fact that autism is better understood and recognised nowadays.
I think (but will probably go research) that the MMR is more effective or safer than having separate measles, mumps and rubella jabs. To be honest, I'm taking it on trust that there is a good reason for giving people the triple vaccine other than cost.
Edit: I found a whole section on the NHS website about MMR here. It discuss the "links" between MMR and autism here and makes the point which I'd forgotten to: Autism is a developmental disorder which affects the way people interact (or don't) socially. The symptoms of autism become noticeable when the child doesn't develop the expected social skills, when they're toddlers. This is the same time the MMR jab is given, so is why there may be anecdotal evidence of MMR causing autism. The timings happen to coincide but this doesn't mean one causes the other.
Also, the amount of bloody controversy this vaccine has caused makes me so angry. It vaccinates against HPV (the human papillomavirus) which is a cause of cervical cancer. The vaccine is most efficient if given either before the girl enters puberty or they become sexually active. I can't remember off the top of my head which one it is - but I know there is a very good reason the vaccine is being given to 12/13 year old girls and it is too do with effectiveness.
Edit: In fact I'm informed by the NHS website here that 99% of all cervical cancers are caused by HPV and "The HPV vaccine protects against the two strains of HPV (16 and 18) that cause cervical cancer in over 70% of women"
So the vaccine will prevent over 70% cases of cervical cancer.
On second thoughts, I'm pretty sure it's too do be with being sexually active. Because the first big controversy was that having this injection was going to make girls more likely to go out and have sex. Clearly, having a vaccine against one, rarely mentioned, sexually transmitted disease is going to make you jump into bed with the first boy you come across. The main STIs which were covered when I was a teenager (or pre-teen. I think I was about 11 when we were taught about HIV. And that was 14 years ago) were HIV, Chlamydia, gonorrhoea and herpes. I don't recall HPV being mentioned at all. But the ones I was told about and (rightly) scared off unprotected sex with are deadly, symptomless and gross (respectively). I imagine that most teenagers would feel the same and being told, well there's one less to worry about, isn't actually going to make much difference.
Vaccines save lives. This vaccine will protect against cancer. At the moment, cancer treatments are almost as life changing/breaking as the disease. As far as I know. I've been lucky that none of my immediate circle of family and friends have had the disease, but I know others who have had it and heard tales of how draining the treatments are. Also film and tv tell me this so it must be true (Important: this is not enough to make something true). If we have any protection against cancer, why the hesitation against using it? Is it because it's a female disease? Is it because people like to make a fuss over anything?
There was more that I meant to moan/bitch about but I can't remember right this second. This issue has got me very annoyed and frustrated. Partly because I don't have all the facts. I'm not a doctor, or whatever you'd need to be to understand vaccines and how they work. Also I can't stop and look these things up because I am writing or die-ing.... But now I have plenty or beginning thoughts to go and look into when I finish.
Derren Brown hacked me off the other week on his "how to predict the lottery numbers" show. Partly because the show was advertised and presented as a reveal the trick show. A lot of his previous shows have been a show and tell - show and trick then explain the basics of how it works. True, sometimes a lot of rubbish was thrown in too. Tales of old magicians doing this and that. Some bells and whistles. But there was always some explanations too.
The lottery show was all bluster. The bit that I would have found most interesting (how to win at a coin tossing game, most probably using game theory) was glossed over with "This uses deep maths. I could spend a whole hour explaining how this works to you".
"Deep maths" is so clearly magician speak for "I don't want to tell you so I am going to scare you off by telling you it's a subject you hate and that it's a complicated version of that subject" It really annoyed me because I am a mathematician at heart and I hate that people just dismiss the subject. Tell anyone you studied maths at university and you'll probably get a response along the lines of "you must have been really clever/I hated maths at school/I could never understand maths." I hate that it is socially acceptable to be bad at maths.
The fanfare came then so I stopped. I guess I could have carried on writing, but I would have been here all night once I'd started on Maths and why it is great.
Some statistics to finish with:
Drafting time: 35 minutes
Editing time: 1 hour 10 minutes (Including finding links and reading the article to make sure there were relevant)
Draft length: 1005 words
Edited length: 1176 words